>> One of the great mysteries is why there exist new mailers that can't
>> provide the simple, unambiguous, time-tested ">" convention. A slightly
>> lesser mystery is why apparently intelligent people use them.

(Whenever I'm stuck with such a mailer, I paste in the quoted matter
and add the carets by hand, but some people's time must be too
valuable for that.)

> Because I was offered exactly two options with my new DSL service in April:
> either use something from Microsoft, or use Verizon Yahoo. . . .

My Comcast service comes with mail, but instead I use Google Mail,
which has a web interface but also lets me download to Thunderbird (or
other client) with standard POP protocol. Likely there are other
services with the same properties.

> Now explain (a) why it's any of your business and (b) why this message
> was allowed to be posted to qalam.

It becomes qalam's business when it affects either legibility or
civility on qalam.

--
Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/